john was showing the map a minute ago, the donbas is much more open than what we ve seen before so perhaps we re talking about something that moves more toward the turkish made drone which has a higher speed, a longer distance and carry multiple different weapons and maybe that s what we re talking about here. something that can be used in that more open ground to get over bigger distances, lighter a little longer and strike harder. right now, though, it really is a mystery exactly what the phoenix drone is all about, the phoenix ghost, but obviously with 700 of the switchblade drones already headed toward there and these now added to the arsenal it s something the pentagon believes could be another change maker for the ukrainians. we ve seen the video, just how vulnerable these targets are to these drones. tom foreman, thank you so much for that. a new washington post article details how some of russia s elite have started to break under the economic consequences of russia s inv
of this visit, as well, is that you know the ukrainians state has survived. yeah. and when we hear president zelenskyy say, you know, um, hope they don t come empty handed. with just cakes. i mean, what is it he is expecting here? we have heard the united states in the last few weeks announce $800 million or so of support. i mean, two packages in less than a few weeks. so, what is he expecting? well, there s obviously there s you know, there are still critical needs for switchblade drones, for example. you know, the ukraine may do with more javelins. but i think the the what we have heard from zelenskyy recently is that, you know, there is i think sufficient weaponry by now to be able to withstand the onslaught in the east. ukrainian officials have expressed, you know, increasing confidence that ukrainians will
bodies. adding there s evidence that russian forces were dumping bodies there in bulk, literally by the truckload every day for weeks. in a statement, it s been a horror story of violations perpetrated against civilians and international humanitarian law has not been ignored but seemingly tossed aside. the united states continues to do what it can to answer ukraine s massive need for arms, sending almost $3.4 billion in aid to ukraine since the start of the war on february 24th. the first rounds of the latest military aid package will be in the hands of ukrainian forces by the end of this weekend, according to the pentagon and includes the equivalent of five battalions and aerial vehicles, which are similar to the switchblade drones but were
to talk to you about some of what the new aid includes, right, that these, there are phoenix ghost drone systems that were made by the air force specifically for ukraine. the pentagon spokesperson john kirby says they are similar to switchblade drones but wouldn t elaborate on the differences. how could they use tools like this and do you know the difference? differences? well the most important thing you can do with these is either take out the artillery or more importantly the command post that are directing the artillery or the radar sets that are activating the russian acquisition system so they re going after high value targets. you can loiter with them, they have obviously got a low radar cross section so probably more difficult for the russian air defense to work against, and i would suspect they have a larger warhead than the switchblade. this could be the second classified system sent into
together, and it was responsible for about 12% of ukraine s steel shipments back just before the invasion. so this is a big, big prize for them. but from a combat perspective, this is one of the toughest environments they can go into. it s no wonder they want to surround it and in essence stafb it out. i m interested in hearing about we learned today that new drone that the air force developed for ukraine, it s called the phoenix ghost drone. the pentagon says it provides similar capabilities to switchblade drones, they won t give away exactly what it can do. but what do you know about it? so the phoenix ghost is similar to what we said to the switch blade. this is switchblade animation, so if there are any details that are different, and i m sure there are, it s not going to be exactly like this. but it gives people the idea of what it can do. it can independently target different targets. for example, you can assess are